


I Can't Face the Dark Without You

by allxthexwords



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allxthexwords/pseuds/allxthexwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Thane dies, Shepard is left alone, drowning in her own memories. </p>
<p>Rated T; 1,119 words</p>
<p>For Rach <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Face the Dark Without You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BadOrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadOrange/gifts).



Feeling numb, after spending some time with Kolyat, Shepard left the small hospital room and began to make her way back to the Normandy on muscle memory alone. She had made this trip many times, coming and stopping in to see Thane as much as she could between fighting the Reapers and trying to unite the whole galaxy. But this would be the last time she walked back to the Normandy from coming up to the hospital to see the love of her life. Thane had moved on from this world, he had gone to the place across the sea, somewhere she couldn’t yet follow. 

It hadn’t been long, and already there was this gaping hole in her heart and life. 

In the lobby, her eyes glanced over to the chairs out of habit, and for a split second she could see him standing by the window, doing the light exercise he had been doing the very first day she had come to see him. 

She ran the rest of the way to the elevator, slamming the ‘close door’ button and then the one for the docking bay. She struggled to hold herself up against the walls, head hanging low to her chest and legs feeling weak. Eyes closed, she remembered. 

She could remember short outings to the Presidium, holding hands and drinking cups of tea while watching the artificial sunset. She could remember sitting by his bedside and chatting with Kolyat, finding out how the young man was doing with his work at C-Sec. She could remember the day that she had hoped up on the bed with Thane, and Kolyat had sat beside them, and she had forced the two of them to watch a few of the Blasto films with her on her omni-tool, quoting lines back and forth with Kolyat, her free hand holding Thane’s. She could remember stolen kisses and bittersweet goodbyes; if Thane had been feeling well enough, he would walk her down to the airlock and make sure she got to the Normandy safe and sound so she could get back to fighting the war.

When the voice told her she had arrived at Docking Bay D24, the doors opened, and she could almost feel Thane gently pulling her out and towards her ship, as she had always pouted at having to leave him.

She kept her eyes closed, and she could almost hear him admonishing her.

“Siha, please,” he would always murmur in her ear, a hint of playful exasperation in his voice, not wanting to keep her from her duties any longer. She could’ve sworn he was right there with her, urging her to go back to her ship, but when she opened her eyes he was gone.

Quickly, Shepard took the sleeve of her uniform and brushed the tears from her face. Here in the Docking Bay she couldn’t be the woman who had just lost the only man she had ever truly loved, but the steadfast Commander everyone looked to for hope, for the protection of their people. She couldn’t be seen broken and crying in public; the morale she desperately tried to keep uplifted would be devastated. 

She moved past the people, weaving in between bodies and doing her best to avoid being noticed, instead of walking straight ahead with shoulders back and chin up. Right now she just wanted to get back to her ship, to get back to the privacy of her cabin where she could mourn and tend to her broken heart in peace.

The Citadel disappeared behind her with the closing of the airlock doors, the automated voice telling her that decontamination was in process. She closed her eyes, blessedly alone, if only for a few moments. But her mind wouldn’t let her have the solace she was desperately aching for, and taunted her with more memories of Thane.

Memories of coming back from missions, sweaty and exhausted, but pleased that everything had been accomplished, glancing at each other with a smile. Memories of kisses after close calls, desperate just for a moment to know they had both made it out alive. Memories of Thane fussing over her, frowning deeply at her blood on his hands while making sure the wounds she had weren’t life threatening, before dragging her down to see Chakwas in the med bay. 

The current wound in her heart may not have been physical, but it felt every bit as deadly.

She made her way to her terminal in a blur, checking messages but not really reading them, not really comprehending the words that were written there. Thane was dead; how was anything supposed to make sense ever again? Traynor said something, and Shepard wasn’t even really sure what she responded with. The words left her mouth without her brain even acknowledging them, too focused on the new gaping absence in her life. 

Walking into the elevator, her hand reached out and pressed the button for the Crew Deck without her permission. When the elevator doors opened, she moved past Garrus without a word, her gaze locked on the Life Support door. 

Coming in here had been hard before; she could still see his guns lining the shelves, his books tucked away in a dark corner where not many would bother to look, his favourite tea from Kahje stashed away, the cot pressed against the side of the wall. The only things that lingered were the table and chairs they had sat at so many times, talking about anything and everything. They had made love on that table more than once, ignoring the cot behind them completely. She trailed her hand along the tabletop, blinking back tears.

All that was left of Thane in the room, the only small sign that he had ever lived here on her ship with her at all, was the solitary mug on the table he had used for tea. A mug; without it, it would’ve been like the room had remained unoccupied, the way her heart would’ve been had he not come into it.

Shepard sat down in the chair that Thane usually occupied, taking the mug in her hands. How could a piece of ceramic suddenly become her most prized possession? It was cool to the touch, just as his hands had been in hers. 

What she wouldn’t have given for just one more kiss, one more touch, one more moment with him. 

A sob wracked her shoulders, and the finally floodgates broke; a few of her tears fell inside the empty mug cradled between her hands as she sat in Life Support, utterly alone, and wondering how on earth she was supposed to face the rest of her life without him.


End file.
